Schematic plan · Arab-Israeli War, 1967 (Six-Day War)

Battle of Rafah

5 June 1967
Egypt
Victory for Israel

A schematic plan, generated from the statistics of the CAA Database of Battles: the armies' size and width, the hours of fighting, the plan of attack and the outcome are as recorded; the ground and the positions are not.

Israel (Is Tal Div, 19,520 men under Bg Tal) attacked Egypt (Eg 7th Inf Div(+), 19,500 men under Mg Soliman) in Egypt. The CAA Database of Battles records 9.8 hours of fighting on a front of 24 km, a double envelopment against prepared defense and fortified defense, and that Israel won. Losses: Israel 700 (4%), Egypt 2,700 (14%).

This plan is generated from those figures. It shows the shape of the battle the database describes: the size and width of the armies, the plan of attack and the outcome. It does not show where the units actually stood.

The armies

Israel

Bg Tal

Unit	Arm	Men
Israel left wing	Infantry	4,094
Israel centre	Infantry	5,459
Israel right wing	Infantry	4,094
Israel reserve	Infantry	3,412
Israel artillery (84 guns)	Artillery	1,260
Israel armour (240 tanks)	Armour	1,200
Bg Tal	Commander	—
In this plan		19,519

Egypt

Mg Soliman

Unit	Arm	Men
Egypt left wing	Infantry	4,199
Egypt centre	Infantry	5,598
Egypt right wing	Infantry	4,199
Egypt reserve	Infantry	3,499
Egypt artillery (68 guns)	Artillery	1,020
Egypt armour (197 tanks)	Armour	985
Mg Soliman	Commander	—
In this plan		19,500

What the sources report

	Israel	Egypt
Strength, this plan	19,520	19,500
Losses, this plan	700	2,700

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 554, “Rafah”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 9.8 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Flat, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Hot, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Prepared defense, Fortified defense
Front width: 24 km (attacker), 24 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Israelattacker	19,520	700	0	84	Double envelopment; Breakthrough; Pursued
Egyptdefender	19,500	2,700	0	68	Defensive/offensive plan; Single envelopment; Left rear; Withdrew with heavy losses

Attacker’s advantages leadership +1 · training +1 · initiative +1 · surprise +2 · air superiority +1 · combat effectiveness +1

CDB90 (US Army Concepts Analysis Agency, 1990), tidy edition by Jeffrey B. Arnold; data under ODC-BY 1.0.

Notes

On this reconstruction

Generated automatically from the statistics in CDB90. Frontages, depths, distances, the order of events and the terrain are schematic: they follow the recorded strengths, front widths, hours of fighting, tactical plan and outcome, not maps or accounts of the battle. The sources give no hours; the timing is conjectural.

Sources

US Army Concepts Analysis Agency; tidy edition by Jeffrey B. Arnold, CAA Database of Battles (CDB90), no. 554 · ODC-BY-1.0Strengths, losses, front widths, hours of fighting, tactics and outcome.

Facts gathered from Wikidata (CC0), Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0) and Wikimedia Commons (licence per file); the plan and its text are timeastra’s own.